I was an older student attending Rutgers University - Newark, in New Jersey. I passed by a student lounge and saw on the big screen TV the plane had hit the first tower. I went to another building and spoke to two maintenance guys and they invited me to join them on the roof of the building. You could see the Towers from New Jersey (across the river) and we watched the smoke pouring out of the Tower.
I has a check up scheduled at the student health center. After that finished, I got out and ran into a professor who was friends with one of my professors. He was a little intoxicated. I asked what was happening, and he said the towers had fallen. I was amazed. I left to go home from Newark and the cellphone networks were jammed. I called my parents in the Midwest and told them I was ok. We lived across from a major highway (Route 21, Exit 8) and traffic was bumper to bumper for miles, lasting hours.
In 1981 I lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and when I’d walk out the door of the building I’d see the Empire State Building on the right and The World Trade Towers on the left. I moved back to the Midwest, visiting a lot of times and finally moved to New Jersey in 1990. My wife’s family had relatives visiting from Asia and I would take them on walking tours of NYC. I took two of them to the observation deck of the World Trade Towers. Many people who live in New York City took them for granted and had never been there. I had a job where I audio recorded a meeting for two days on the 33rd floor, watching out the window as planes flew over the Hudson River. I tried to get jobs at the restaurant at the top of one Tower (Windows of the World) and at the Marriott Hotel (WTC Building 5) at the base of the Twin Towers. I used to meet the guy for weed frequently at Dunkin Donuts, at the base of the Tower. The Saturday before 9-11, I missed my stop and wound up at the PATH station below the Towers.
A week after they fell you could finally get within a few blocks of the site. I saw the huge pile of rubble. It was near other buildings and the pile was 6 stories high, smoldering as it would for a month. The air was acrid with the smell of burnt electrical devices.
I never went back and have no desire to see the new buildings.
I just watched this video, and almost 19 years later, on the other side of the planet, it still brings tears to my eyes. Enjoy and appreciate everything - right now. You never know when it will be gone.
Go to 3:49 https://youtu.be/39tXfUm80Bc